


Raising the Stakes

by virdant



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Folklore, Gen, M/M, Research, Science Experiments, Supernatural Elements, Vampire Hunters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-25 21:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9847565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: Vampire hunting is a science. Katsuki Yuuri, one of the dime-a-dozen Japanese Staking Federation certified researchers, returns to his small laboratory in Hasetsu Castle Research Park after his presentation at the International Staking Union’s December Conference goes wrong. He’s prepared to fade into obscurity when preeminent vampire hunter Viktor Nikiforov sees something in his research.





	1. Chapter 1

Vampiric flesh shows signs of accelerated decay when in contact with holy water. Samples of holy water from multiple religions around the world were collected and organized according to purity and quality. Holy water samples were then used to induce decay in vampiric flesh samples and the rate of decay measured utilizing the Okukawa method to normalize variations in behavior. The rate of decay indicates a correlation between origin of holy water and turning site of vampires.

_Religious Blessings and Holy Water Purity: a comparison in different religions’ effects on the purity and quality of holy water as used as a destructive force against vampires._  
Katsuki, Y., Nguyen, J., Kent, P., Okukawa. M, Cialdini, C., Detroit Staking College, January 2016 

*

“Katsuki-san!”

Yuuri blinked up at Morooka, who was wielding his press badge like a sword. Not that swords were allowed in the International Staking Union’s December Conference—even Viktor Nikiforov had handed over the Sword of St. Olga at coat check before he had come into the convention hall.

“Morooka-san,” he managed, struggling to his feet with an overly loud squelch of holy water in his loafers. He tried to look as presentable as he could be, with damp hair and a soaked suit.

Morooka looked suitably sympathetic. “Any comments on your presentation?”

Yuuri stuttered out a, “No comment.” He eyed the rapidly expanding puddle at his feet. Luckily the navy carpet didn’t seem to be reacting adversely with the holy water. You never knew with public areas. The carpet in the auditorium in Detroit had hissed angrily when he had spilled some holy water on it by accident. It turned out that the building had been used by vampires as a hideout decades ago. That had almost become a national incident.

Satisfied that the carpet wasn’t going to dissolve and he would not be charged with destruction of public property, he looked up. Yuuri was used to being wet—ever since his first paper he had only worked on holy water—but he wasn’t used to being wet while presenting what would become his graduation thesis.

“I heard there was a mishap,” Morooka said, because Morooka had been the one to find him in Minako’s tiny lab and write that first news article that got them funding. Morooka had known Yuuri since Yuuri was a high school student doing staking research after school, splitting his time between Hasetsu Castle Research Park and Minako’s private projects.

Yuuri owed it to Morooka to at least try to form coherent sentences. “It didn’t go over very well.” He stared down at the puddle. 

“Can you elaborate more on the accident?” he asked. He didn’t have his notepad out, but that didn’t mean that anything Yuuri said wouldn’t make it onto the Japanese Staking Federation’s site anyways. 

Yuuri stared down at the puddle. Were the edges turning purple? 

“Katsuki-san?”

Yuuri looked up. Morooka peered at him, mouth pinching around a question. “No comment,” he said, and his voice was quiet but clear.

*

Yuuri had moved to Detroit to study right after his first paper.

He could have stayed. He had thought about staying: in Hasetsu, with Minako and Yuuko and his family. Most people didn’t get to spend their formative years under Minako Okukawa of the Okukawa method of measuring the rate of decay in undead flesh after all. He could have stayed, in Hasetsu.

Instead, Yuuri had moved to Detroit. He joined the Cialdini group, because Celestino Cialdini had been one of the first to offer him a place in his lab, and Yuuri had taken the first available spot in a lab that would allow him to continue to specialize in holy water. Celestino’s group was obstinately a Destruction group, but Yuuri had started in Minako’s lab in Hasetsu—Destruction wasn’t anything new.

Yuuri had settled into Detroit. He had written his papers and given his presentations—every year, at ISU events—and now he was graduating. 

“You could stay,” Phichit offered, not for the first time, while helping him clean up his lab space with one hand and snapping the occasional photo on his phone with the other. He frowned at the photo before he took another one, this time aligning his face in the frame. Seemingly satisfied, he dropped the tongs he was holding with one hand and set about typing on his phone with both thumbs. “Get your doctorate.”

Yuuri mumbled, “I don’t think I’m cut out for that.” He packed up the tiny vials of water samples that he had collected over the years in Styrofoam boxes. The glass squelched as he wedged them secure. He filled another box and reached for the packing tape.

Phichit handed it over without even taking a selfie. “Your presentation at the December conference wasn’t that bad.”

“And the JSF event?”

Phichit grimaced, and made sure to align his face in the frame properly as he snapped another photo.

Yuuri smiled tentatively back, setting aside the box. “I’ll keep in touch,” he offered.

He was going back to Hasetsu after all. Hasetsu was no ivory tower of research, but it was enough. It had never been formidable, but Minako’s presence had built up its reputation, stone by stone, until Hasetsu Castle Research Park was one of the shining jewels of Kyuushu. Hasetsu was no longer the same, but it still, once, had been brilliant. 

Phichit put aside his phone. “You’ll keep an eye for my paper?”

Even though it was no longer producing the same volume of research, they still kept up a regular subscription of all of the major journals. Minako, at least, would have access to all of the major ISU journals.

“Yes,” Yuuri said. It wouldn’t be hard to keep up. Minako probably kept up with J-Stake and JVID. And he could get an online subscription to the other research journals.

“Great!” Phichit hesitated for a second. “Goodbye selfie with the Masters grad?”

*

They were playing _The King and the Staker_ on the plane.

Yuuri watched it twice.

*

In Hasetsu, Yuuri let himself fall into his parents’ warmth, into Minako’s sharp tongue, into Yuuko’s familiar friendship.

He knelt before the family shrine, the smell of incense sharp and familiar at the same time. There was a bowl of water, and without looking, Yuuri knew that it came from their hot springs.

Yuuri knelt and prayed. 

After he had returned, Yuuri checked the ISU app once, for any alerts, and then turned it off. He left it installed on his phone—all registered researchers and stakers were required to keep the app on their personal device in case of any emergency—but he silenced the persistent updates from the International Spring Conference and instead jogged to lab and carefully laid out the dizzying array of vials he had collected throughout the years.

“I couldn’t stay depressed,” Yuuri said. “So please—watch.”

*

On April fourth, Yuuko Nishigori’s blog updated.

She hadn’t used it in years. The most recent post was a brief notice of a hiatus that had been extended permanently. The one right underneath it was an announcement that of a paper that had been published: _Effects of varying concentrations of Holy Water on vampiric flesh decay_ , of which she was third author.

The top post now was: _novel research into the use of holy water as an identification method_ , Katsuki Yuuri et al. 

This is where the story could end.

After all, Yuuko’s blog was old. Any followers that she might have in Japan’s staking community would have moved on. Reasonably, nobody should have noticed it.

But somebody did. Nobody was entirely sure who. Perhaps it was an enterprising intern from the ISU half-heartedly browsing in an attempt to get out of work. Perhaps it was one of Nishigori Yuuko’s friends from when she was still a high school student doing after-school research. Perhaps it was one of Yuuko’s triplets sneakily cross-posting to the staking subreddit.

Either way, one week later, it snowed.

And with the snow came Viktor Nikiforov.

*

Viktor means victorious, and he had never known anything else.

From the first time that he had held a stake in his hand (hawthorn, sharpened to a jagged point, the bark rough against his soft hands), Viktor had only known one conclusion: he fights, he wins. The more he fought, the more he won, and before long he found himself the poster boy of Russia's staking community, holding the newly bestowed Sword of St. Olga aloft. 

Viktor was used to this. 

For years, he had traveled around the world at the ISU's beck and call, victorious each time. His hands were a thick callous from practice and slaying and at twenty-seven years of age the only softness he knew was Makka's fur against the tips of his fingers and the relief of victory. 

He stepped off the plane—a commercial flight, the Sword of St. Olga neatly stowed away in his checked luggage and only a blunted wooden stake for protection, but vampires didn't handle pressurized cabins well, so he wasn't concerned. Fukuoka was warmer than St. Petersburg, and he tugged his scarf loose even as he waited for Makka. 

Japan, he thought, flipping his phone around his palm before thumbing through his apps. The official stakers app was just a touch away, but Viktor indulged in his web browser, watching the grainy video in a stark laboratory with renewed interest. 

Yuuri Katsuki's voice echoed through the speakers, a quiet steady narrative as he pipetted holy water. 

Viktor's smile was a slash in his face as he carelessly slung his bag over his shoulder and fetched Makka. "Should we go find Katsuki, Makkachin?"

Makka barked back, two intelligent eyes fixed forward.

*

“Vicchan,” Yuuri was calling. “Vicchan, here.”

Vicchan trotted over, vials held carefully in his mouth. He dropped them into Yuuri’s hand, each one perfectly intact.

“Good boy, Vicchan,” Yuuri said. His fingers caught on the soft fur as he scratched behind the ears. “Good boy.”

Vicchan panted, tongue lolling out as he leaned into Yuuri’s touch.

“Do you want to help me with my research, Vicchan?”

Vicchan padded silently behind him.

Other dogs were trained to bite. Vicchan, tiny Vicchan with his small paws and jaw would never accompany Yuuri out into the wild to hunt vampires. Yuuri was a researcher, and Vicchan had grown up in the hot springs of Hasetsu. He could dive for netting and knew how to hold a vial in his mouth without cracking the glass between his jaws. Vicchan knew to sit quietly when Yuuri was running a column, knew to sit out of the way underneath a chair and wait.

Vicchan had waited a long time.

“Vicchan,” Yuuri was calling. “Vicchan, where did you go?”

The lab was empty—it was just him, alone, vials still damp with Vicchan’s saliva.

“Vicchan,” he cried, and there was no reply.

*

The day that Viktor Nikiforov arrived, Yuuri woke to snow.

Grief was salt on his cheeks and moisture on his palms. When he flexed his hands, he could almost feel Vicchan’s fur against his fingers, the chill of glass vials from the refrigerator, the damp warmth of Vicchan’s breath as he dropped them neatly into the palm of his hand.

“Vicchan,” he breathed, and covered his face with his hands. He could have sat there for days, in bed, replaying the memory of Vicchan’s soft nose nuzzling his hands, the tears that spilled over his palms so similar yet so different from the saliva as he handed each item carefully over—vials of holy water, thermometers, graduated cylinders and beakers.

Yuuri pulled his legs in, grief still sharp within his chest. Hasetsu didn’t have as rich of a staking tradition as other cities, but their priests knew the proper rituals and their coffins came with fishing nets nailed to the lids. Vicchan would be content even if he hadn’t been home for the funeral.

He stumbled out of bed and to the family shrine, lighting incense and bowing before it. He inhaled, deeply, letting the smoke fill his lungs until his eyes watered.

“I’m home, Vicchan,” Yuuri said, and exhaled. Memory and grief could make a spirit linger when it didn’t need to. “I’m home now.”

Then he went to shovel snow.

*

Yuuri had barely gotten the door open when the creature—Vicchan, back from the grave?—leapt at him and instinct honed from years of research allowed him to grope at the vial of holy water he always kept in his pocket and hurl it. It bounced harmlessly off, and shattered on the concrete, splashing them both with Hasetsu hot spring water.

Yuuri blinked from his damp glasses at the dog, so like Vicchan, that panted at him. But Vicchan had been a toy poodle, trained to fetch and carry. This dog—

Yuuri’s fingers caught in the wiry curls and he brushed his hand along the dog’s chin.

This was a hunting dog.

Yuuri leaned back, cupping the dog by the strong jaw. He had seen this dog before, in the IFS magazines. He _knew_ this dog—

Yuuri’s father said, “Looks just like our Vicchan, doesn’t he?” He was holding a tray with a bowl of water, and Yuuri didn’t need to look at it to know that it was from their hot spring. “Gave me and your mother such a shock when he turned up with that handsome foreigner. Mari almost put a stake through him.”

He managed to choke out, “There’s evidence that shows growth halts after a turning.”

His father laughed. He had never been a researcher, that had been Yuuri’s mother, briefly, but growing up in Hasetsu in an inn built over holy hot springs, one couldn’t avoid learning about the otherworld. “Yes, of course.”

Yuuri’s fingers caught behind the dog’s ear, “Foreigner?”

He stumbled down the halls. In the changing rooms, Yuuri fumbled through the cubbies until he found the Sword of St. Olga, sheathed, the blade gleaming when he pulled it out an inch. He ignored the old men muttering at the blade, shoving it back into the cubby with shaking hands.

He tripped, barely remembering to kick off his indoors slippers as he headed into the bathhouse proper and then the outdoor springs.

“Viktor,” he said.

Naked, dripping from holy water, Viktor Nikiforov extended his hand and declared, “Yuuri! Starting from today we’re collaborators!”

*

Later, after Viktor had been bribed with freshly cooked katsudon to put on clothes, Yuuri finally managed, “What are you really doing here?”

Viktor gasped, hands to his mouth in mocking shock. “Yuuri, you mean you haven’t checked your mail?”

Yuuri stared at the ceiling to avoid the way the sleeves of Viktor’s yukata had slid to expose pale, delicate wrists. “What does my mail have to do with anything?”

Viktor said, “If you checked your email,” and handed over Yuuri’s phone.

He stared down, trying to be undisturbed by the fact that Viktor had effectively pickpocketed him. He thumbed the phone on.

_You have 134 new messages._

It buzzed in his hand as another message came in. Yuuri turned his phone off again. “What.”

Viktor exclaimed, “How could I not have come after that video of you?” He stared mournfully down at the bowl of katsudon before brandishing his chopsticks like a sword. Yuuri blinked to avoid getting his eyes stabbed out. “Yuuri, starting today, we hunt!”

“Hunt?”

Viktor nodded. “The vampire that’s infiltrated the ISU.”


	2. Chapter 2

A correlation between temperature and rate of decay has been identified, where decay rate peaks at temperatures of 302.9K. The rate of decay was measured using the Okukawa method. The data indicates the mechanism for decay of undead muscle tissue by reaction with holy water is temperature driven.  
_Water temperature as it correlates to the rate of decay in undead muscle tissue_  
Katsuki Y., Lee, T., Kent, P., Okukawa. M, Cialdini, C., Detroit Staking College, 2011

*

Yuuri had only been in Celestino’s group for a few months before his first conference. He had submitted the abstract less than a week after he had moved to Detroit, and he had barely been settled before he was spending late nights in the lab, feverishly testing samples.

Those first four months had been the hardest, with a new group, a new PI, and lab-mates who asked him to repeat himself over, and over, and over, until Yuuri, already so quiet, stopped talking completely.

Celestino had tried, Yuuri would never begrudge him for that. Group meetings, group dinners, literature meetings with the lab next door—Yuuri would find a corner and sit, notepad in one hand and pen in the other. If asked to talk, he would answer in as few words as possible and stop, his tongue heavy against his soft palate.

Yuuri stuttered through his first conference; he presented a poster in Stake America and Celestino, who normally let his students handle poster presentations on their own, sat nearby with water and a plastic bag with stomach medication. 

The week after, Celestino said, “Perhaps you should put more hours in the lab.”

*

Yuuko didn’t perform research anymore; she had stopped when she had gotten pregnant, when it was no longer healthy for her to stand on her feet for hours on end. Instead, she had switched to managing Hastsu’s research labs, most of which sat empty and lifeless except for when the local students signed up for summer research projects.

Yuuri found himself there, again, leaning over the counter.

“Well of course you can have lab space,” Yuuko said, as she consulted a schedule. “You’re always welcome to do research here, Yuuri.”

“It’s not just for me,” Yuuri said. He doubted the JSF would look favorably on any grant requests after the fiasco at the last few conferences, but he still had grant money left over. JSF had funded the majority of his research even when he had been in Detroit; and combined with some of the ISU grants, Yuuri had more than enough to populate a lab in Hasetsu.

Yuuko clasps her hands together. “Are you starting a group?”

Masters graduates didn’t start research labs. If they weren’t going for PhDs in academic labs, they were in the industry or government labs. That was if they even stayed in their field. Yuuri had thought he would be content managing his family’s inn.

“No,” Yuuri said. “Viktor and I—there’s research I need to do for a project for Viktor.”

Yuuko’s pen slipped. “Viktor?”

Yuuri shook his head, waving his hands frantically to keep her from grabbing one of the stakes under her desk. “Viktor Nikiforov. Not Vicchan—”

She screeched, “ _Viktor Nikiforov_?”

Yuuri glanced over his shoulder at the glass doors, as if saying the name would summon him. (Despite common myth, research had disproved that uttering a vampire’s name three times would summon them. Hunters named Viktor Nikiforov on the other hand…) “It’s not public information,” he tried.

Yuuko obligingly lowered her voice. “Is he here?”

Viktor was, in fact, wandering Hasetsu taking selfies and tagging them with his location on Instagram.

Yuuri winced. “He has a project he wants to work on with me.”

“Yuuri,” she hissed. “That’s _huge_. Viktor Nikiforov!”

“I know.”

Viktor Nikiforov had never published a single article in J-Stake, but that didn’t stop everybody from knowing his name. He had staked his first vampire with a pencil of yew when he was eight, he had spent over six months in Siberia hunting the undead when he was twelve, and he had been given the Sword of St. Olga when he was seventeen. Yuuri would know; one insomniac night, Yuuri had filled out most of Viktor’s Japanese Wikipedia article.

“Did he bring the sword?”

Yuuri slumped over the counter. “I don’t know how he brought it on the plane.”

“When you’re Viktor Nikiforov,” Yuuko breathed, “you can do anything.”

“Including bringing swords on public flights,” Yuuri muttered into the glossy wood of the counter.

Yuuko said, “Is he starting a lab here?”

“I don’t know.”

Viktor had been maddingly tight-lipped about what collaboration meant. Yuuri assumed, after turning back on his phone and reading through some of the many emails, that Yuuri was supposed to scry the location of the vampire that had infiltrated the ISU, and then Viktor would head to that location and put the Sword of St. Olga through said vampire’s neck. Head properly separated from torso, Yuuri and Viktor would go their separate ways. 

Yuuri didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was part of the Division of Destruction, not Identification.

Viktor was also galivanting about Hasetsu instead of explaining his plan, leaving Yuuri here, in one of Hasetsu’s last bastions of research, negotiating laboratory space.

“Maybe you should talk to him,” Yuuko offered.

Yuuri shrugged. “I’ve got some grant money left,” he said instead. “Enough to cover running costs for a few months.”

She stared back at him, her smiling mouth fading into something quiet and distant. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You’re our star, Yuuri.”

*

Before he had left Detroit, Yuuri had packed up every single one of his vials of holy water.

It had been difficult, wrangling samples from all over the world. Yuuri credited Celestino and Phichit for most of the work of negotiating with priests and the park rangers who managed holy sites. A few years ago, he wouldn’t have imagined that one day he would have access to more holy water than what bubbled freely from the natural hot springs behind Yutopia Inn.

That was probably over, unless Viktor had contacts—Viktor probably did have contacts—unless Viktor was serious about collaborating. Yuuri stared at the tiny vials lined neatly in the refrigerator. He had enough to continue the research the triplets had filmed him doing, if he worked very carefully and made zero mistakes.

Yuuri closed the refrigerator door and sighed.

“Yuuri!” Viktor exclaimed, throwing the door to the lab open.

He winced.

“What are you doing here?” Viktor asked. He glanced around, trying to open one of the upper cabinets. He tugged at the handle experimentally before giving up as it didn’t budge to move, fruitlessly, to test the rest of the doors. Yuuri demonstrated the earthquake-proof handle silently and let Viktor wander through the sparse cabinets. “Did you know there’s a castle?”

Yuuri nodded. It was nothing more than a tourist trap, though it was mostly empty these days. Before, every single visiting post-doc or grad student would head to the castle if they wanted simple entertainment. “They used to have labs in there,” he said, trying to busy himself with a fume hood. It was in impeccable condition, as expected from equipment under Yuuko’s management. “But it would have been more expensive to refit them to meet safety standards than build a new one.” So, instead of tearing down the building and refitting it with proper ventilation, they had built this new building at the foot of the hill. That had been back when Minako had just come back from her post-doc abroad; she had set up her personal laboratory in the first and only building of Hasetsu Castle Research Park, as one of the first people to move in.

There was still a hallway in Hasetsu Castle with a plaque. _Okukawa Method developed here_.

Viktor said, “Is that why you got into research?”

“What?”

Viktor opened another, empty, cabinet. “I didn’t realize that the Okukawa Method was developed in Hastesu.”

It had been—at the time—the greatest discovery, and what was more amazing was that Minako had gotten credit for it instead of her PI. Before Minako had identified the mechanism for measuring undead flesh decay, Destruction research had been plagued by ethical issues. June, 1978: the month Minako Okukawa put the seaside town of Hasetsu on the map. 

Yuuri said, “I started researching when I was six. Minako-sensei runs children’s workshops.”

He had started learning even younger, in Minako’s summer camps. His mother had taken him and Mari when Yuuri was four, holding both of them by the hand while they walked through the quiet streets. Back then, Minako’s summer camps were still popular in Japan; as Minako’s _kohai_ , Hiroko Katsuki had priority registration, and Yuuri had never questioned that his summers would be with Minako-sensei.

As he had gotten older, registration, let alone priority registration, was unnecessary.

Viktor said, “Wow! Young!”

“You staked a vampire when you were eight,” Yuuri mumbled into the empty cabinet. His voice echoed unnecessarily loudly. “You had to have started training even earlier.”

“When I was eight,” he said, agreeably. “You were six.”

Yuuri looked up to see Viktor, Sword of St. Olga strapped to his back, no longer investigating the cabinets. Instead, he was focused unerringly on Yuuri: dust lingering in his dark hair and shirt-sleeves pushed haphazardly to his elbows.

Viktor said, “Amazing,” his mouth curved into a smile.

Yuuri turned away from the weight of expectation in that gaze. “The lab will be set up soon.”

“Great!”

“I’m not an Identification specialist,” Yuuri blurted out, eyeing the empty glass-faced cabinet. “That video. That was a fluke. I don’t do research in ID, and I don’t keep up with the literature—”

“Yuuri…”

“There are other researchers out there that are better for what you want.”

Viktor said, “I want you.”

Yuuri’s fingers caught on the earthquake-proof handle. 

He continued, “None of the ID specialists have found him. But you… you’re doing something different. What your video showed—you could find the vampire and we could stake it.”

“Right.” Yuuri took a deep breath. Unqualified ID Specialist. He could do that. “Right.”

Viktor beamed. “But first,” he said, “let’s see what you can do.”

*

**phichit+chu:** H 2Oly SHIT  
**katsuki_yu:** … that’s unnecessary  
**phichit+chu:** i sent you 100 messages and this is the one you respond to?  
**phichit+chu:** therefore: completely necessary  
**katsuki_yu:** 1\. Yes.  
**katsuki_yu:** 2\. No.  
**phichit+chu:** you can’t produce ID research and not TELL me  
**katsuki_yu:** it just dabbling  
**katsuki_yu:** it’s incomplete  
**phichit+chu:** i am not even going to start with you

*

All stakers trained. You never knew when a vampire would appear, and so in order to be certified by the ISU, whether you were a hunter or researcher, you had to show competence with a stake—JSF tested with hawthorn, usually—and prove that you could defend yourself in case of a vampire attack.

Yuuri, having passed the exams once, maintained a decent amount of fitness; however, as a researcher, he was nowhere close to Viktor Nikiforov’s level. As such, he was gasping for breath by the time he made it to Hasetsu Castle Research Park.

Viktor tsked. “What would you do if you were attacked?”

Yuuri did not say that unlike Viktor himself, Yuuri did not go hunting for the undead. Instead, he spent his days safely indoors surrounded by hundreds of vials of holy water, and he knew which ones were the most potent and which ones were closest to the best temperature for undead flesh decay.

Instead, he braced his arms against his knees and gasped for breath.

Viktor tried to keep Yuuri out of the lab, citing his athleticism (or lack thereof). Yuuri stayed away from the lab for less than one day before he felt the lack in the shortness of his breath and the shaking of his fingers, and found himself jogging in the dark.

It was a familiar path, if a completely unfamiliar run.

*

The next evening, Makkachin joined Yuuri as he jogged to the laboratory. 

*

Viktor hadn’t asked him about his research since that first day, when he had showed up and informed Yuuri that they were going to collaborate. Yuuri spent the mornings jogging with Viktor, practicing staking and hurling water balloons at targets. After dinner and avoiding Viktor’s advances in the onsen, Yuuri laid awake in bed until he gave up and made his way to the laboratory.

Makka followed him every time, and Yuuri thought that it was like having Vicchan back.

Minako found him one evening, local sake in one hand and cups in the other. After students had stopped coming in droves for her summer programs, Minako had opened up a bar instead. She served local sake made with purified water, and Yuuri had never _tried_ to throw it at a vampire but he suspected that if he had slipped Minako’s special sake on the dingy carpet in Detroit, it would have fizzed and hissed, if not wailed.

“Viktor Nikiforov, huh,” she said.

Yuuri flushed.

“Do you still have those clippings?” she asked, setting the cups down on the desk in the clean area adjacent to the fume hood and pouring the sake. “Or did you throw them out when you moved back from America?”

They were, in fact, in a folder in his desk. He had taken them off his wall and hid them in his deepest desk drawer when Viktor had arrived. He didn’t tell Minako that.

She drank, gestured with a cup, refilled it, and drank again. “When is he leaving?”

Yuuri’s hand shook. The vial smashed against the floor. He stared at the puddle: Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park, 2015.

Minako glanced at the puddle. Makka sniffed the water. Yuuri reached for a mop on pure instinct.

Minako said, “Is he leaving?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Why is he here?” she asked. She poured and drank again, throwing back the sake with a flip of her hair. “That video the triplets posted?”

Yuuri said, “I guess.”

“Show me.”

Yuuri stared. Makka nosed Yuuri’s palm, his breath warm and damp like tears. “Show you?”

She jerked at the lab. “How are you going to identify vampires with holy water? Throw it at them and see if they fizzle?”

He said, “It sometimes works.”

She settled in a creaky chair, Yuuri’s first PI. The one who had, when Yuuri’s insomnia had first started, gave him a key to the lab and his own access code. Yuuri stared at her expectant gaze, found no quarter, and started talking.

*

There are four divisions in the International Staking Union.

The first is Identification. If you can navigate through the mess of the ISU website, then you can eventually find a blurb that describes the Division of Vampire Identification—DVID for short—as the division that fosters and promotes the advancement of the field of Vampire Identification. If you went to their Wikipedia page instead, at the right time of the day, you would get redirected to Christophe Giacometti’s 2014 paper: _Clothing evolution through the ages: a sociological study on identifying vampires through clothing (or lack thereof)_.

The Division of Vampire Prevention site is an elegantly repurposed WordPress site, which is to say that it is a WordPress site with the words Division of Vampire Prevention on the top. 

The Division of Protection against Vampires—DPAV, not to be mistaken for DVP, the Division of Vampire Prevention—on the other hand, has an actual website. There’s a list of sub-divisions and a featured paper of the month. This month it’s a paper on ancestral worship as a conduit for jianxi repellent in the average household. 

The last is Destruction.

It’s the oldest division, back when the ISU wasn’t even a thing, and stakers were just concerned husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, armed with sharpened stakes of wood or a bowl of blessed water.

It’s also the youngest division.

The site lists its history—oldest division, haphazard research being done for centuries, mostly by hunters in the field. Pre-1978, the division had prioritized providing support—financial and otherwise—for hunters over researchers. Then Minako Okukawa, with her paper: _A novel method for measuring the rate of decay in undead muscle tissue_ , revitalized Destruction research, formalizing the division and establishing it as a bastion of knowledge. Now, there’s even an entire page dedicated to the research on holy water filled with links to Katsuki Yuuri’s papers, all behind paywalls.

Since returning from Detroit, Yuuri had gone onto the site exactly once. But before…

From the very first time he saw the recording of Viktor Nikiforov, eight years old, driving the yew pencil unerringly into a vampire’s heart, Yuuri had wanted to stand next to him. When videos surfaced of Viktor returning from Siberia, his previously long hair shorn raggedly short, Yuuri let his breath catch in his chest before he flung himself into his research with more wild abandon. 

When it came time for him to register with the JSF and the ISU, he hadn’t hesitated to join the Destruction division. 

Anything to bring him closer to Viktor.

*

Yuuri was not the only person who had spent many of his formative years on the Destruction website. The next few days brought the sakura, in full bloom, and Yuri Plisetsky.

“Viktor!” he shouted, slinging a stained bag full of stakes across his shoulder. The wood clattered angrily in counterpoint to his wails. “Viktor Nikiforov! You bastard! Where are you?”

Old Tanaka, fishing by the bridge, clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Untreated canvas,” he said in disapproval. “The sea air will rot the wood in weeks.”

“Haaaaah?”

Hasetsu was a small town with a solid history in staking, so it didn’t take long for word to get around that there was a gaijin running around with good stakes wrapped in untreated canvas. “Probably somebody here for one of Minako’s workshops,” Yamada-san at the ramen stall said, pointing him in the direction of Hasetsu Research Park. “Bit of an odd time for a workshop,” Shimada-san, the cobbler said.

“Viktor,” Yuri screeched, flinging the door open.

“Are you the person running around with stakes in untreated canvas?” Yuuko began, before squinting. “Yuri Plisetsky?” she asked.

“Yuri Plisetsky?” The triplets—Hawthorn, Buckthorn, and Whitethorn—peered out from where they had been playing in one of the empty labs.

“Yuri Plisetsky?” Yuuri echoed. “What is Yuri Plisetsky doing here?”

Yuri Plisetsky honed in on Yuuri with the fury of a woman scorned, and the tangled, matted hair of one too. “Where is Viktor?” he shouted. He brandished his bag with unnerving ease for a 15-year-old boy. The stakes clattered in counterpoint to his screaming.

They gaped unflatteringly at him.

Viktor wandered in, sword in hand. “Yuri,” Viktor responded. He gaped unflatteringly at the elfin features and sea-wind matted hair. “I forgot a promise, didn’t I?”

*

Viktor had, in his entire life, forgotten many promises.

When he was five, he had promised Ekaterina that he would attend her birthday party. Ekaterina had been distraught when he hadn’t shown up. Viktor had spent that day digging a stream in his grandfather’s backyard.

When he was nine, he had promised to sharpen his cousin Mikhail’s pencils. Mikhail had been understandably furious when he had shown up to school with dull pencils. Viktor had used the pencils to complete his homework—twenty sets of stabbing into a torso-shaped stuffed canvas bag.

When he was fifteen, he had already developed a habit of forgetting promises. He smiled, charmed the nearest person, and let the promises float away with the wind.

He was halfway through explaining this when Yuri interrupted him, katsudon practically falling from his mouth as he snarled, “This isn’t a birthday party or unsharpened pencils! You promised me an apprenticeship!”

“Did I?” Viktor asked. “You know how forgetful I am!”

Yuri was practically frothing at the mouth. Yuuri eyed the younger man dubiously—if carpets had faces, he suspected the carpet at Detroit would have looked like this after holy water had been spilled on it. He tried for a safer topic. “What are apprenticeships?”

“How could you not know?”

Yuuri glanced at Yuri before turning to Viktor, who was slouched in his seat, yukata slipping enticingly off his shoulder. “What are apprenticeships?” he repeated.

“You don’t have them?” Viktor asked.

“Maybe it’s a hunter thing,” Yuuri offered. “I went to grad school.”

Yuri Plisetsky scowled into his katsudon. “We know,” he snarled into his food.

Viktor clapped his hands, beaming. “And you had a mentor, didn’t you, Yuuri?”

Yuuri blinked, once, twice, and then said, “I had a PI.” Minako had been the primary investigator of his laboratory when he was still in Hasetsu, and once he had moved to Detroit, Celestino had been the primary investigator. Yuuko hadn’t hesitated to give him lab space, even though he only had a Masters degree; most institutions required at least a PhD before even contemplating signing over research space.

“Hunters,” Viktor said, “sign onto apprenticeships.” Some of them were short-term, but most of them were long-term contracts that spanned years. Even after hunters passed certification tests, they usually stayed closely affiliated. Viktor had continued to hunt under Yakov’s direction even after he had been certified and started working on his own. Eventually, a hunter’s career ended—either at the fangs of the vampires they hunted, or when their aging body caught up to them.

“You forgot your promise,” Yuri said.

“Well, I can’t take you as an apprentice now,” Viktor said amiably. “You could be the vampire that infiltrated the ISU.”

“You know I’m not!” Yuri screeched.

Viktor patted his arm amiably. “That sounds like exactly what a vampire who had infiltrated the ISU would say.”

Yuri spluttered.

“But don’t worry.” He sat up, shrugging the yukata higher up his shoulders. “I know how to resolve this.”

Yuuri eyed Viktor dubiously, wondering if he was going to pull out an identification method to locate undercover vampires. 

“We’ll have a staking contest!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think Celestino handles Yuuri’s anxiety and depression badly in the scene in this chapter, you are absolutely correct. This is, actually, a more positive way of handling mental illness than most PIs do. There are multiple studies that show that mental illness in grad students in the sciences is utterly AWFUL and most of them have zero support from their PIs, who are their bosses and dictate whether or not they’re going to graduate or not.
> 
> Going to a PI and saying you have depression and you are going to need to do things for your mental health is met with “why don’t you just work more to distract yourself” (assuming you have a PI who is supportive enough to even acknowledge you have a mental illness).
> 
> Things like “you don’t need friends, you just need to work more in lab” is a completely common sentiment among science PIs, and it’s utterly horrifying that there are hundreds of grad students who are miserable and depressed who are just told things like that. There is a legitimate reason so many science PhDs masters out, and one reason is that it’s an awful sort of environment if you’re even remotely depressed or prone to depression. Pretty much EVERY SINGLE PERSON I know who was in or is in a science PhD program was extremely depressed and either they mastered out or they stuck it out and pretty much the consensus is that it’s not a good place if you want to be mentally healthy lol.
> 
> So part of writing Celestino like this to show that. He absolutely does try—he does more than a lot of PIs would do, by being physically present while Yuuri is anxious and having water and stomach medication. But when it comes to dealing with the root problem, he gives utterly awful advice. 
> 
> I was thinking about writing a supportive Celestino who does everything right but canonically he really doesn’t. But he tries. So here’s a PI who tries—he really does try—but just doesn’t quite get it right.
> 
> Also Yuuri’s such a lying narrator: “it’s just dabbling. It’s incomplete” people would kill for paper-producing research like Yuuri just whips out. This is 100% deliberate.
> 
> 3 guesses on Yurio's background and the first 2 don't count.

**Author's Note:**

> The real summary of the story is: "the couple that stakes together stays together" and you can follow my tag for it on my tumblr here [[x](http://virdant.tumblr.com/tagged/the-couple-that-stakes-together-stays-together)]
> 
>  
> 
> Super thanks to the usual crowd: Pann, Mikachi, and Adzusai for all of their help. Special thanks goes to Mikachi for her crazy folklore and vampire knowledge--did you know there are vampire pumpkins? now you do. The title is all thanks to Adzusai who rose from the (studying) dead to provide the best title after about an hour of grousing.
> 
>  
> 
> The moral of the story is never mistype "skate" and "stake" it will haunt your life and you will produce scientific vampire hunting AU as a result ( s a v e m e )


End file.
